


Stars Align

by Descended_from_Hufflepuffs



Series: A Demon and a Profiler [1]
Category: Lucifer (TV), Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: Gen, Malcolm is good at his job, Mazinkeen is a badass, Meet-Cute, but like you need to provide backstory first?, here it is, yeah - Freeform, you ever just get a ship idea?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-10
Updated: 2020-06-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:01:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24645343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Descended_from_Hufflepuffs/pseuds/Descended_from_Hufflepuffs
Summary: Mazikeen Smith is hunting her toughest perp yet when she meets a certain profiler.
Relationships: Future Mazikeen/Malcolm Bright, Mazikeen & Malcolm Bright
Series: A Demon and a Profiler [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1781860
Comments: 4
Kudos: 56





	Stars Align

Mazikeen Smith sprinted after her target. She’d spent weeks tracking this guy and finally found him in New York City. The problem? He was  _ still _ outrunning her. Every hint she got from a lead was worthless a day later. He moved around so much that when she did get a handle on him, he slipped out of her grasp with ease. Every time she tried to find a pattern, all she could see was random connecting lines. But now, now she might have a chance of getting the bastard.

She was close, so so close. She could practically touch him!

A large force knocked her aside and pinned her to the sidewalk as shouting filled the air. She growled and dug into her demon strength to stand up and shove whatever it was that knocked her. It was...a man. A short, thin man that would probably get knocked over in a mild windstorm.  _ What the hell????  _ She must be losing her touch.

“I’m sorry about that.” 

She was snapped out of her thoughts by the tiny man speaking. “You should be,” she huffed, wiping dirt off of her clothes. If it wasn’t for Lucifer’s rules, she would slay him where he stood.

More humans followed this one and interrupted anything he might’ve said next. “Bright, you okay?” asked the older one, setting an arm on his shoulder.

"I'm fine. Had a little run-in but I'm fine." He fixed his suit and turned back to Maze when the other man left. "I really am sorry about that."

"And you really should be. Now I've lost my mark. Again!"

"Your….mark?"

She huffed and rolled her eyes. "Yes, my mark. I'm a bounty hunter for the LAPD and I've been chasing this guy across the country for almost a month. I almost had him and now, thanks to you, he got away  _ again _ !" She not so lightly punched him in the shoulder and stormed off, pulling out her phone to call an Uber back to her motel.

"Wait!"

She scowled and turned back to face him. “What?” she growled.

“Okay, I understand you’re mad at me and you have every right to be but-”

“Silence.” Her demon voice popped out and that got him to shut up. “I can already tell you’re doing that thing where you try to ‘make it up’ to me and that’s fine but it’s not how I work. You’re lean but I doubt you’re fit enough to chase down an actual criminal, especially in that suit. You’re obviously a clumsy bastard and I don’t need that kind of incompetence working with me. And on top of that, you reek of money and I really don’t need any spoiled posh kids running around and screwing things up because he got a little dirt on his shoes. So thanks, but fuck off.” She started to leave again but then he started talking.

“Okay, that was a lot of assumptions right out the gate and a few of them were wrong. Firstly, I am indeed ‘fit enough’ to catch a criminal and I have done so several times, not including my work with the FBI. Secondly, I am a trained profiler and quite competent at what I do. And yes, I do come from money but I generally only whine about not being able to work or having to be in the hospital. Basically, I am capable of helping you and I actually want to.” And of course, he finished it off with a little smirk. Or was it a genuine smile? She couldn’t tell.

She silently considered his offer. It was more interesting now that she knew he had a personality. Then again, she didn’t like working with people. On the other hand, if he was actually a good profiler he would be a good person to work with. She was great at getting into a criminal’s head but she’d clearly hit a wall. Maybe she should take him up on it. It’s not like he could make it worse.

“Fine. But if you screw this up, you’re dead.” Why he laughed at that, she would never understand. “Come on, we’ve got work to do.”

“Sounds fun. I’m Malcolm, by the way.”

“Mazikeen. Let’s go; you’re paying for the Uber.”

\----------

Mazikeen paced around the room while Malcolm sat on the bed going over all the information she’d put together on the perp. “I have to say, this is an impressive file. Better than some of the cases I dealt with in the FBI.”

“I have good informants,” she snapped. “I’ve been running around the city for two weeks but I’m always one step behind him. I need you to get me ahead of him and figure out where he’s going next.”

He pored over the seemingly endless information she’d gathered. It was a little unorganized but that didn’t matter. The issue was there didn’t seem to be much of a pattern to the places he did. Sure, they were all important to him in some way if Malcolm’s profile was right, and it usually was, but there was no order to it. But there had to be; most people worked on a pattern even if they tried not to.

He watched her move out of the corner of his eye, putting together a second profile. He knew he shouldn’t do it but he couldn’t exactly turn off a natural instinct to judge the people around oneself. Besides, he’d assured Gil he knew the random woman he was getting in an Uber with and he hated lying to him. 

“Is this a personal case for you?” he asked. He immediately regretted it when a sizable knife shot past his ear and became embedded in the headboard.

“I don’t remember asking you to profile me. I already have one therapist in my life and I don’t need another one. Now, do you have anything useful to tell me or should I go back to pacing?”

Malcolm bit his lip and looked down at his notes. “Well, the guy is clearly visiting places he’s comfortable with. All places that are important to him in some way. The only other common denominator seems to be that they’re all easy to defend and look out from, which is likely how he keeps getting away from you.”

Mazikeen nodded, gesturing for him to continue.

“Well….he’s trying to be unpredictable but there’s some sort of pattern to it. I’m not entirely sure what it is yet though. There doesn’t seem to be an order of importance, maybe there’s something in the distance or the buildings themselves but even that seems too obvious….” 

She tapped her chin and pulled out a map. “Maybe there’s something to that…. Read off where he’s been in chronological order…..”   
  


A few minutes later they were both on the floor staring at dots on a map. Nothing seemed to stand out, not even connecting the dots. Mazikeen claimed the shape seemed familiar to her but she couldn’t quite place it. Malcolm had never seen it before but he was sure it was important somehow.

After about ten minutes of silent staring, he was startled out of his thoughts by Mazikeen suddenly standing and reaching for her jacket. “I don’t know about you but my mind is fried. Let’s go get a drink and come back later.”

It was then that he noticed how late it was and that he had a total of 15 missed calls and nearly 50 unread messages from both his mother and father, plus 10 more calls from Martin. “Yeah, just give me a second. I've made a few people rather unhappy with my complete lack of contact with the outside world.”

She just shrugged and went to wait outside while he finished his business. After assuring both Gil and Jessica that he was perfectly fine and he was, in fact, going to eat something and that he would see them the next day, he grabbed his suit jacket and left the room.

“Got your babysitters sorted? His new companion asked when he came out.

“Everything is fine. I just have people that are concerned about me for valid reasons.”

She rolled her eyes and gestured for him to follow her. “Come on. There’s a bar near here with some decent food. We’ll grab a bite and come back and see what we can figure out.”

He followed her and couldn’t help but keep up the profile. In truth, he found her utterly fascinating. Strange woman chasing a bounty across the country who reluctantly accepts his help because he accidentally made her lose her mark? Tie in the powerful stride that goes far too fast for her short legs and a knack for throwing knives and you have quite a puzzle. 

He couldn’t wait to solve it.

\-----

Maze studied him while she drank her beer. Chloe told her she needed to stop doing that because it weirded people out but she could tell he was studying her too so she figured that made it even.

“What’re you getting to eat? I’m thinking steak,” she murmured, barely glancing at the menu.

He shrugged. “Probably just a salad. Most food makes me sick so half of this menu is off limits….”

Even if he wasn’t oddly talkative she could practically smell the personal hell he was buried deep in. It was nearly as satisfying as the real thing but she couldn’t hate him too much for it. “You’re awfully forthcoming with personal information. Odd for a former fed; you guys are normally more mysterious.”

“Well, I’m not your typical fed,” he quipped. “Well, nothing about me is typical in any case.”

“I find that most humans are more typical than they think they are.” She smirked, sipping more of her drink. 

“Oh?” That got him interested. “What makes you think that?”

"Well, I may not be a profiler but I've been around.” She shrugged. “Everyone thinks they’re special, that the things they do matter more to the universe than other people whether it’s good or bad. You always have more guilt and pride than you think you do. Even if the circumstances are a little extreme, you’re no different than any other random person on the street.”

Malcolm scoffed and rolled his eyes. “Ah, the basic public perception of psychology. I wonder why I wasted my time getting a degree and training when I could’ve just talked to you.”

“So I’m wrong?”

He huffed and took a few large drinks of his beer. “Yes and no.  _ Most people _ could identify with that but even within that group there are several outliers. It’s a generalization and barely decent one at that.”

“And you know more?”

“I mean, that’s literally my job so I would think so.”

They were interrupted by their food arriving and Maze took the opportunity to change subjects. “So, why are you a profiler? Doesn’t seem like analyzing criminals is every child’s dream.”

“My father was arrested for being a serial killer and I wanted to understand how he’d been such a great dad and a cold murderer at the same time,” he replied simply, pushing his food around his plate. “What about you? Why become a bounty hunter?”

Maze shrugged. “It reminded me of home. And hunting humans is fun.”

He clearly hadn't been expecting that answer with how he choked on his drink. She smirked and dug into her steak. “Yeah, I know, I had a weird childhood. But I think I turned out okay.”

“If hunting people down reminds you of your childhood, I think you’ve passed the ‘weird’ territory.”

“Maybe so. But I’m still functioning and loving my job so….” She shrugged. Her mind started to drift back to the case. She knew she'd seen that symbol somewhere before but...where? It couldn't be anything related to Lucifer, she would've recognized it immediately. There had to be something else….

A while later, they were back in the motel room, still poring over their information. Maze sent a picture of their map to Lucifer and Amenadiel, hoping one of them would recognize it. While she waited for a response, she watched Malcolm go over the files again. He was...interesting to her in a way humans normally weren’t. Normally it was just about sex, maybe the occassional friend. Malcolm was...an enigma. Like, he annoyed her but she didn’t completely hate spending time with him and maybe she wouldn’t actually admit to wanting to hang out with him more in a non-work way. 

Thankfully, her phone binged before she could explore that train of thought for much longer. It was just a photo but it was enough.  _ Classic Amenadiel…. _ Not a well known prank on Lucifer but popular enough for their guy to know it and attach meaning to it.

“Hey, I think I got a hit.” She tossed him the phone. “It’s called  _ The Horned God _ .” 

Malcolm nodded, inspecting the picture and comparing it to their map. “He was close to his mom, most of his early infractions were getting money to support her, and she practiced witchcraft for most of his life. According to her blog, it gave her fulfillment after her family abandoned her for being a single mother. Seems like something he would attach meaning to….”

“And that would put his next hideout...here.” She marked the building with an X. An old warehouse, pretty much abandoned but still sturdy. Easy to defend and hide in. It fit the profile.

Malcolm grabbed his jacket and practically bounded to the door. “Alright! Let’s go catch him.”

\----------------

“So, how exactly are we going to catch this guy?” Malcolm whispered. “Do you have backup or something?”

“Nope. Don’t need it.” Mazikeen walked confidently in front of him. “There are only so many places this guy can hide here and there’s a lot of open territory in between them.” She smirked and pushed open the gate. “Let the hunt begin.”

“Hunt? Wait, shouldn’t we- And she’s gone.” If Gil were here, he would note the irony of him being concerned about planning and backup but he wasn’t so Malcolm wasn’t going to dwell on that. He walked quietly through the yard around the warehouse, eyes on the lookout for their mark and anything else suspicious. 

Wait, was that something? No, just a shadow…. Unless….

It was not.

Malcolm grappled with his attacker, thankful that he didn’t seem to have a weapon. For all his FBI training, fighting was never his strong suit. Normally, he would try to profile himself out of the situation but he was running low on breath as it was so that wasn’t an option. He could try calling for Mazikeen but that just led back to the oxygen thing- And now that’s not a problem because Mazikeen was holding a very strange knife to their guy’s throat.

“Easy now, my hand could slip,” she hissed, slowly pulling him off of Malcolm and throwing him down to be cuffed. “I swear, you were way more trouble than you were worth.” 

Well, that was done. “You got him.”

“Yep.” She flipped her hair back out of her face. “Thanks for distracting him for me. I guess bringing you on wasn’t the worst thing.” She clapped his shoulder and stepped away to call her boss to confirm the capture.

Malcolm watched her while keeping an eye on the captive. He’d done so much fieldwork with the FBI and who knows how many investigations with the NYPD but this felt...new. A good kind of new. The heart-pumping kind of new that an adrenaline junkie like him loved. Maybe it was just the high of victory but Mazikeen seemed to be radiating that sort of energy. Working with her had been a ride from start to finish. From their first meeting to right now, everything about this case had been exciting. She seemed to embody the spirit of not caring for the rules but still getting the job done, the kind of spirit he held in his FBI glory days. He felt alive around her, for lack of a better phrase. He felt like he could handle a party with his mother, a visit with his father, and a good night’s sleep.

It was sad to see that feeling slip away the next morning. After she called in the catch, she had to get ready to take him back to LA for his trial and Malcolm had to admit he was going to miss her. Since he’d been so caught up in the moment during the case, he hadn’t bothered to give Mazikeen his number or ask her for hers so it seemed they would never see each other again and that was more than a little sad.

That sadness did not override his surprise when he got a text from her a few days later. 

_ Hey. I broke into your phone while you were distracted with the files, hope that’s okay. It was kinda fun working with you so if you’re ever in LA hmu. Oh, and I’ve deemed you worthy of calling me Maze now. See you around, Bright. _

  
Yes, Mazikeen Smith was an interesting puzzle. But maybe he didn’t have to solve it just yet…. __


End file.
